Beating Swords into Plowshares, Poison Gas into Pesticides

Email this article to a friend

British-born American actor Cary Grant (1904 - 1986) is pursued across a cornfield by a cropduster in the Hitchcock film 'North by Northwest', 1959. Photo by MGM Studios/Archive Photos/Getty Images

In the midst of World War I, Rudyard Kipling declared, “There are only two divisions in the world to-day—human beings and Germans.” That mindset was not unique to Kipling, and made it easier for the other European powers to bomb German cities, poison German soldiers in trenches, riddle their bodies with bullets and stab them with bayonets. But if the Germans weren’t human, what were they?

Environmental historian Edmund Russell uses a simple word for “everything other than people and their creations,” a category into which Kipling might have placed the Germans: “Nature.” By casting the Germans as a “natural threat,” Russell writes, propagandists were able “to transform killing from a moral issue into a natural response.”

In his 2001 book, War and Nature: Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War I to Silent Spring, Russell documents the interconnected rise of chemical warfare and chemical insecticides, and compares the power structure and priorities of American society at war and at peace. He uses this chemical case study, adapted from his doctoral dissertation in history at the University of Michigan, to push a broader thesis: “War and control of nature coevolved: the control of nature expanded the scale of war, and war expanded the scale on which people controlled nature.”

He is not the first to connect war and control of nature. In 1976, for example, historian Murray Morgan wrote of deforestation, “It was strangely like war. They attacked the forest as if it were an enemy to be pushed back from the beachheads, driven into the hills, broken into patches, and wiped out. Many operators thought they were not only making lumber but liberating the land from the trees.”

The parallels still exist today, if we care to notice, and warring nations do not factor nature into their collateral damage reports. A recent Truthout/TomDispatch report exposes potentially disastrous ramifications for arctic wildlife due to the Navy’s planned war games. Hundreds of thousands of marine mammals’ lives will be disrupted, including dolphins, sea lions, and several species of whale. At least a dozen native tribes make their home in the affected region of Alaska and expected damage to local fish populations, salmon in particular, poses a severe threat to their traditional diet and way of life. For the indigenous humans (and indigenous nonhumans), these “games” are anything but.

The war on nature in Russell’s book is more than just a metaphor. When chemical pesticides were first introduced, the goal was annihilation and insects were explicitly cast as an opposing military force. During World War I, one entomologist writing in the Chicago Herald referred to “fifty billion German allies” damaging America’s crops.

In the words of L.O. Howard, the chief of the U.S. Bureau of Entomology, these German allies called for “warfare against insect life” —and, naturally, more funding for his bureau. A newspaper cartoonist got specific, demanding the extermination of the fly. He depicted a giant fly under siege from human cannon fire, writing in his caption that this war would “Make the World Safe for Habitation.”

Four years after the Great War, Century Magazine described humanity’s need to eradicate insects as “a warfare that will know no armistice. Man’s civilization, his future, his very life are at stake.” In 1925 Harper’s took an equally apocalyptic tone. “The issue is vital: no less than the life or death of the human race.”

The weapons used were closely tied to their time period: World War I had seen the first systematic use of poison gas and what worked in the trenches often worked on the farm. The war was a “Cinderella-like transformation of the American chemical industry,” and after the World Wars, synthetic organic compounds used for defoliation, to make weapons and as insecticides to protect troops were promoted and sold for use in the civilian market.

Arsenic, a natural mettaloid, has a long history of use as a pesticide, herbicide, paint pigment, medicine, wood preservative and human poison. Before the Great War began, arsenic was the base of most widely used pesticides. Of course, arsenic isn’t just bad for pests. It also killed insectivorous reptiles and, as one insecticide maker put it, our “most beautiful and faithful allies the birds.” Synthetic chemicals developed during World Wars I and II were thought to be safer for vertebrates while more devastating for insects. Instead, pests quickly developed resistances to the pesticides, so more and stronger poisons were used. Birds and other insect eaters were exposed to the poisons, without resistance to them, as were humans, causing illness and death

Russell attributes the long-term failure of pesticides to a fundamental difference between peacetime and war. While his historical narrative is consistently compelling, his argument here is perhaps the most effective part of the book. In war, he reasons, soldiers are often on the move. If pesticides left a site with long-term consequences—as some did—this did not matter to the soldiers, who (if they survived the battle) were presumably long gone when the residual damage manifested. In the thick of battle, the preservation of wildlife is not the highest priority. What mattered was immediate threat elimination—urgent, momentary control of the natural world.

In peacetime, on the other hand, people aren’t advancing on or retreating from an enemy—we settle down in a particular spot. Farmers work the same land for years, and even low levels of pesticides add up. Slight disruptions to the ecosystem can lead to disastrous ramifications over timescales too large to be relevant in human warfare.

The other key argument in Russell’s story is that “peacetime” became less and less defined over time. In the aftermath of World War I, eras of peace seemed distinct from those of conflict. But this began to change over the interwar years and, by the time the Cold War began, whatever lines remained were irreversibly blurred.

A collusion of government and industry interests were central to solidifying what we now call the “military-industrial complex.” Perhaps more surprisingly, academia was also an eager collaborator. Public opinion opposed chemical warfare after World War I, but the American Chemical Society was an influential cheerleader. Chemists proved to be stubborn political obstacles to any sort of arms treaty limiting poison gas. We all know that physicists helped develop the atom bomb—but in the story Russell tells, the “workhorses” of war were the chemists.

The Army’s Chemical Warfare Service kept busy during the interwar years doing what they called “peace work,” but this work was not peaceful for everyone. They sent chlorine gas into gopher holes, poisoned rats and earthworms and supplied tear gas for use against civilian protesters.

The relationship worked both ways: Chemicals and institutions developed for war were effective against nature, and the control of nature in turn would lead to weapons of war in World War II. “The flexibility of insecticide research posed a tremendous challenge to anyone who wanted to abolish research on chemical warfare,” Russell writes. You can’t research one without the other. As Major General William Porter, chief of the Chemical Warfare Service, so chillingly observed in 1944: “The fundamental biological principles of poisoning Japanese, insects, rats, bacteria and cancer are essentially the same.”

Notice that Porter does not mention the Germans. The Nazis as a group received a huge amount of vitriol, but as a nationality the Germans were much less hated than the Japanese. In the Pacific Theater the most deadly killer was insect-borne illness but, according to the propaganda machine, mosquitoes weren’t the only insects.

Military cartoonists portrayed the Japanese as arthropods with grossly caricatured features, with accompanying text often bordering on genocide: “This louse inhabits coral atolls in the South Pacific … But before a complete cure may be effected the origin of the plague, the breeding grounds around the Tokyo area, must be completely annihilated.” Insecticide companies joined in, putting the heads of Hirohito, Hitler, and Mussolini on bugs in advertisements.

The chairman of the War Manpower Commission, four months before the atomic bombs dropped, called for “the extermination of the Japanese in toto.” The growth of more impersonal means of warfare—dropping bombs from planes instead of stabbing with bayonets—also helped rob the enemy of any humanity. The explicit racism of the dehumanizing Allied propaganda incited disgust for the Japanese and fear and hatred of insects. For both groups, America’s loathing had consequences both at home and abroad.

After World War II Russell takes us down two concurrent paths: one of war and one of human’s attempted control of nature. He shows how the two became joined, with their concomitant economic, social, health, and environmental problems. The first follows the Cold War and the ever-growing power of war-related industries and bureaucracies. The development of “total war,” in which all citizens contributed to the war effort and all citizens could be targets, had eroded traditional lines between civilian and military, culminating in Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1960 “military-industrial complex” speech.

The other path bears witness to the devastating effects of many pesticides on wildlife (not to mention farm workers), and the often unsuccessful attempts by industry to keep up with evolution as many insect species developed pesticide resistance. These failures culminated in Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring, largely credited as the wake-up call that inspired the modern environmental movement.

These two paths intertwine, as Russell’s narrative demonstrates—failed pesticides are reworked as nerve gas for use in Korea, fighter planes are repurposed to douse chemicals across American fields. He leaves the reader with the powerful notion that, while on the surface Eisenhower and Carson were responding to two different phenomena, their underlying messages had much in common.

Here we are 14 years after War and Nature was published, half a century after Silent Spring, and the mighty influence of the military-industrial complex and chemical agriculture are as strong as ever, perhaps stronger. The early warnings that pesticides might upset the “balance of nature” or the “biological balance” have grown into an entire environmentalist vocabulary and movement. The ideas have gone mainstream, but solutions seem harder to come by.

Russell shows that the “war on nature” was a carefully orchestrated and executed post-war plan by the federal government and chemical industry. It supported the consolidation of farms and the industrialization of agriculture. It helped separate us from the production of our food, but kept the physical link between us and the poisons.

His book also presents powerful and exhaustively researched evidence of the ecologist’s mantra that “everything is connected.” The language of the warmongers and chemists may classify humanity as outside of nature, but Russell’s research shows that our health, social, and political realities are inextricably tied to the nonhuman world. We must make peace on both our cornfields and our battlefields—or find peace on neither.

(Sign up for the Rural America In These Times newsletter at the top of this page to be notified of more stories like this one.)

.......Last Few Days To Get Smart Deal with asdf.inthesetimes < I'm making over $7k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make away online so I decided to look into it. Welldone, it was a all true and has totally changed my life.

Last Few Days To Get Smart Deal with asdf.inthesetimes < I'm making over $7k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make away online so I decided to look into it. Welldone, it was a all true and has totally changed my life.

Here you are undeniably incorrect in a number of statements. So much so that you almost seem to be an industry shill. First, NONE of these products have been fully tested under current science and technology. I pointed this out earlier. The requirements for full and appropriate testing would require the resources that no governmental agency wishes to put in, and that is the bottom line. When such peer reviewed studies are performed and the results published THEN we will know. Until then a few independent studies as well as the undeniably biased, unpeer-reviewed research performed by the companies themselves comprise the bases for what little governmental regulation that has been imposed. Of course, the companies spend a great deal to impede appropriate studies in fear that the outcome may hurt their profit. This is really not much different than the GMO problem wherein NO independent peer-reviewed research has been performed on the safety of GMO's. With more and more independent study going on that lacks the necessary resources for full research we are getting a picture of the potential dangers of GMO organisms. Yet, the manufacturers, knowing their profits would be imperiled by real research spend a great deal lobbying governments to avoid the initiation of any such research as well as obscuring the information coming from these independent studies. ALL in the name of profit. This is capitalism. As Nikita Krushchev is reputed to have said the difference between the communists and the capitalists is that the capitalists will happily sell you the rope with which you hang them.

Posted by Clifford Terry on 2015-07-05 23:15:56

TO TERRY --- All pest control products have been evaluated for their carcinogenic potential. http://wp.me/p1jq40-6yf We freely admit that these evaluations are performed within within the limits of modern science. And, yes, perhaps someday, advances in science will allow regulators to more thoroughly assess these products. The assessments that we have for now are the BEST that can be done at this time. At this stage, we cannot just arbitrarily remove all pest control products since the risks that they represent, or may represent, are not greater than their usefulness. Furthermore, if you look at the history of pest control products in the last 100 years, there has been an unbelievable evolution in terms of safety and efficacy. We have evolved from products that were arsenic-based to those that are, in comparison, truly safe. Based upon current science, the Pesticide Risk Assessment is VERY LOW for GOVERNMENT-APPROVED and FEDERALLY-LEGAL pest control products ― 1-IN-1-MILLION-RISK-OF-CANCER. This was not the case 100 years ago. Regardless of whether manufacturers operate as mere profit-seekers, or not, they are more highly-regulated today than at any other time in history. We know from first-hand experience that manufacturers must be profitable since they answer to share-holders, but we also know that manufacturers DO take these assessments very seriously. No manufacturer wants to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to bring a product to market, only to discover that there is some horrible issues that will quickly have it withdrawn. Of course there is government lobbying, but understand that there are huge amounts of money at stake. NO manufacturer is lobbying to have unsafe products released into the marketplace. at any rate, you are an interesting fellow, to say the least. We do converse among ourselves within an inner circle. Sometimes we express ourselves in a manner that is unreasonable and rude, and sometimes we do not. :-) Clearly, we push back against the hard left rhetoric. If you are interested in becoming part of the inner circle, send your e-mail address to force.of.de.nature@gmail.com :-)

Posted by WILLIAM H GATHERCOLE & NORAH G on 2015-07-05 22:43:31

Look, in your response I have come to understand that you are a person of some real intelligence and whether you admit it or not, you already know and comprehend more about what is going on than what you care to admit. So, let us frame this as you would x-rays. Any poison, even arsenic or cyanide, in small enough doses is not likely to do harm. But, cumulative exposure, as with x-rays, can and will have serious deleterious effects once certain levels are reached. Unfortunately, the government regulations regarding long term exposure to chemical poisons are incredibly weak. And this is where x-rays and poisons part company. Though there now exists increased use of x-rays and similar types of electromagnetic emissions by various devices, regulations on x-ray exposure have been strengthened because no major company profits in massive ways by the use of x-ray machines. But Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, and the like profit massively and so they spend vast amounts of money lobbying governments (not just the US government) around the world to help suppress even attempts at reasonable controls let alone attempts at outright prohibitions. Thus, due to the massive use of these poisons around the world, our bodies have accumulated poisons on a major scale and, as yet, no real, independent studies on carcinogenicity, toxicity, mutagenicity, or other deleterious effects have been performed. Once such studies have been performed appropriate regulations could be put into effect to keep the environment as safe not only for people but for ALL inhabitants of this planet. In this way we would be following the same responsible track that was taken with x-rays.

Posted by Clifford Terry on 2015-07-05 21:49:12

TO TERRY --- The x-ray machines used to be called fluoroscopes, and they were, indeed, used with impunity. Nonetheless, x-rays have always been used in small doses, and, like pesticides, have been assessed to cause no harm when used properly. Observers do admit some people, such as your yourself, have adopted the dogma of zero-tolerance for these types of exposure. On the matter of Nevada tests and radium watches, these issues were sheer stupidity, but, at the time, there were NO oversight agencies, like we have today. Nuclear scientist knew full well about the dangers of radiation, but there was NO government infrastructure to protect and inform the public.

Anti-pesticide activists allege that there were health effects caused by the use of Herbicide Orange ( a.k.a. Agent Orange ). However, anti-pesticide activists are unable to conclusively provide bodies of real scientific evidence. Overall, the issues concerning Herbicide Orange have been hijacked by those anti-pesticide activists who wish to exploit the plight of veterans by concocting controversy, false allegations, and terror ! Regardless of whether Herbicide Orange inflicted health issues upon hapless Americans in Vietnam, we believe that ALL VETERANS SHOULD BE FULLY CARED FOR, regardless of the controversy.

Posted by WILLIAM H GATHERCOLE & NORAH G on 2015-07-05 20:45:16

Unfortunately, in a way you are correct and in a way you are not. Monsanto's Agent Orange which was promiscuously used in Vietnam as a defoliant to enable massive forest destruction is known by many vets and those families whose vets have passed on as having been the distal cause of the cancers and reproductive issues they have suffered. And the same holds true for the Vietnamese who have lived or still live in the afflicted areas. Considering the money that the government would owe so many people if they allowed an actual government study to be able to directly determine the causative factors of these issues and the poison could be directly linked?

That other studies of Agent Orange and many other such studies have failed to provide direct links as opposed to findings of probable causation both for Agent Orange and for the organophosphates - tetrachlorvinphos, parathion, malathion, diazinon, and glyphosate due to the complexities required of the studies which require large amounts of money and many years duration to prove conclusivity. As yet, no agency has stepped up to offer the necessary resources.

That ALL independent short term studies performed to date have resulted in strong indications of carcinogenicity for all these chemicals including the recent addition of studies by the World Health Organization should provide for anyone (except those profiting from the use of the chemicals), a very loud warning bell.

Should you wish to ignore the warnings is your problems. If you wish to drink glyphosate as Monsanto claims can be safely done, you may do so. If you wish to drink Drano, you may do so. In the end it is your choice to self-harm through the use of poison but the majority of people do not and will not. Additionally, the majority of people do not want environmental harm to come from these poisons.

And, while the poisons may provide short term advantage by killing off in large numbers in the long term they will fail as the creatures and plants that are the designated targets develop genetic immunities to the poisons and stronger poisons come to be required. Worse still they similarly kill off large numbers of beneficial plants and creatures. Creatures such as the pollinators like bees and butterflies whose numbers have been so devastated.

Think about this, is it not likely that a chemical, designed specifically to inflict biological harm on plants and/or creatures, is also going to create biological harm in people? The answer is, in my opinion a definitive yes and I do not doubt this will be proven through appropriate study.

This whole question really bears a striking resemblance to the issues surrounding radiation (you are probably too young to remember that there was a time when you could walk into a shoe store and examine your feet through a type of x-ray machine - actually, an interesting phenomenon for people at that time - or the testing of nuclear bombs in Nevada while having army troops in close proximity to the blast area, or the issues surrounding the poor workers who painted the faces on the dials of radium-faced watches), or smoking, or myriad other such problems. Eventually the public woke up but not until great damage had been done.

Posted by Clifford Terry on 2015-07-05 17:38:40

With your profound mistrust and unhappiness about life, conspiracy theorists such as yourself are far more likely to succumb to suicide than any so-called man-made poisons. All is well since all pest control products have been evaluated for their carcinogenic potential. http://wp.me/p1jq40-6yf Even Canadian Cancer Society’s own web-sites state repeatedly that scientific research does not provide a conclusive link between pest control products and cancer. http://wp.me/P1jq40-4qC Scientific research proves that pest control products cause no harm and do not cause cancer. Pest control products causing cancer IS A MYTH. http://wp.me/P1jq40-2nl YOUR own personal demise is far more likely to be caused by disease, accidents, or suicide ( the most likely cause of conspiracy theorists’ deaths ). The following is a list of the causes of human deaths worldwide for the year, arranged by their associated mortality rates • heart disease 30% • cancer 25% • chronic lower respiratory diseases 5% • accidents ( unintentional injuries ) 5% • stroke ( cerebrovascular diseases ) 5% • alzheimer’s disease • diabetes • influenza & pneumonia • nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, & nephrosis • intentional self-harm ( suicide ). There are thousands of known deaths per year from known cancer-causing factors such as unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, excess body weight, alcohol consumption, and over-exposure to the sun. There are NONE related to pest control products, which are SCIENTIFICALLY-SAFE, and will NOT CAUSE HARM TO PEOPLE, ANIMALS, OR THE ENVIRONMENT. http://wp.me/p1jq40-7HRhttp://wp.me/P1jq40-2hahttp://wp.me/p1jq40-5ni

Posted by WILLIAM H GATHERCOLE & NORAH G on 2015-07-05 13:43:10

Do you REALLY think we are safe and sound? If so you had better prepare yourself and begin educating yourself. The first thing I would recommend is that you have your body tested for man made poisons that your body now contains. Then find out what the effects are of each poison. Unfortunately, all are taking in such poisons and the results are increased cancers, diminished mental capacities, and much more resulting in a reduction of viability.

Posted by Clifford Terry on 2015-07-05 00:25:04

Enviro-activists have been predicting the destruction of nature for over 50 years, and yet, here we are, safe and sound.

Posted by WILLIAM H GATHERCOLE & NORAH G on 2015-07-04 23:00:18

I agree with you that vivisection of any creature should be condoned by anyone. But your argument against vivisection has absolutely nothing to do with my argument against the use of chemical poisons in the environment. Nothing.

Again, the use of significant amounts of poisons in the environment may provide a small benefit in the short term, but the long term effects are devastatingly negative. Anyone who does any amount of organic farming, for example, knows that nature provides alternatives. People know some alternatives now but many more are there to be discovered. That should be man's outreach, not a fallback on the use of chemical poisons that wind up destroying the habitability of the environment nature provides us.

Posted by Clifford Terry on 2015-07-04 22:33:47

TO TERRY --- There will be NO lifelessness. You are being silly and you talk like a 60s hippie. In essence, YOU are conspiring to inflict prohibition by vivisection, which is socio-political & fatally invasive surgery conducted against living, breathing, and productive businesses operating in the agriculture industry. In essence prohibition vivisection is perpetrated by government officials as experimentation that inevitably inflicts destruction against viable businesses. Government vivisection is always inflicted at the behest of pesticide-hating fanatic-activists who operate, tax-free, anti-pesticide & environmental-terrorist organizations that invariably, unilaterally, politically, & unscientifically oppose all types of modern conventional pest control products. These vivisectionist activists have no training, no expertise, and no background that are required to expertly & scientifically assess the pest control products. Prohibition vivisection is a form of torture & terror against decent, tax-paying, and law-abiding businesses. Government officials and fanatic-activists who subversively conspire to recklessly prohibit against pest control products deserve to be sent to a real vivisectionist !

Posted by WILLIAM H GATHERCOLE & NORAH G on 2015-07-04 22:09:14

We killed all the buffalo to stave the Native Americans too and called their infants nits that would grow into lice so it's ok to kill them too like in Vietnam. It wasn't just agent orange against jungles it was to kill the rice crops and starve the peasant into relocation camps if they would go willingly. After all agri-business does not supply guerrilla warfare there or anywhere else either.Funny thing the supposed aliens sort of look like our worst fear, intelligent insects. So perhaps they have evolved here or else we are already at war with the universe as well as our own planet.

Posted by wildthang on 2015-07-04 20:16:36

Unless man works towards finding natural alternatives towards pest control - and they do exist because natural systems always have balancing functions - we are left with man pursuing a policy that only leads to lifelessness.

Posted by Clifford Terry on 2015-07-04 19:06:35

Next few days start your new life...inthesetimes... < I'm making over $7k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make away online so I decided to look into it. Welldone, it was a all true and has totally changed my life. This is what I do, > < Find Here

Posted by PaulTRapp on 2015-07-04 04:57:48

In 1970, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences summed up the situation with the following excerpt from their book Life Sciences. ― « To only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT. [ … ] In little more than two decades. DDT has prevented 500 million human deaths, due to MALARIA, that otherwise would be inevitable. » In 2004, popular author Michael Crichton summed up the situation with the following excerpt from his book entitled State Of Fear ― « Arguably, the greatest tragedy of the Twentieth Century was the removal of DDT. DDT was the best insecticide for the control of mosquitoes. Despite views to the contrary, no other products were as efficient, or as safe. Since the removal of DDT, it has been estimated that thirty to fifty million people have died unnecessarily from the effects of malaria. Sadly, REMOVING DDT HAS KILLED MORE PEOPLE THAN HITLER. Before the removal of DDT, malaria had become almost a minor illness, with only fifty thousand deaths per year throughout the world. » In 1972, the Administrative Judge of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released the following statement ― « DDT [ ... ] does NOT have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds, or other wildlife. » http://wp.me/P1jq40-1I5 WILLIAM H GATHERCOLE AND NORAH G http://pesticidetruths.com/

Posted by WILLIAM H GATHERCOLE & NORAH G on 2015-07-03 21:20:21

About this Blog

This blog’s mission is to make the issues that rural America is grappling with part of national discourse. more